034 Hear Us Roar: A Manifesto for Women and Minorities in Startup, Tech, and Business Communities with Sophia Eng

Sophia Eng talks about “Hear Us Roar: A Manifesto for Women and Minorities in Startup, Tech, and Business Communities with Sophia Eng” in this episode of ColdFusion Alive podcast with host Michael Smith. She has a passion for closing the minority and gender gap in business leadership and ownership. Recently, she founded a community group called Women in Growth, open to all women in startup, tech, and business communities for support.

Have you heard already about the Google #Iamremarkable movement?

Episode highlights

How men and women in tech are different and the same?

Buying patterns

Women buy the most, repeat buy more, most social sharing

AB testing and CRO

Decision making

Social conditioning vs DNA in tech skills

Women get 50% of degrees are 30% of corporate employee

Women are systems oriented too

How traditional female characteristics help in programming

Empathy for innovation

Mother coders organization helping mothers learn to code

Why she wrote her first article overcoming fear to hit publish

Hear Us Roar: A Manifesto for Women and Minorities in Startup, Tech, and Business Communities

Felt vulnerable and did it anyway

If not me, who

If not now, when

How did writing articles and speaking at events help your career?

Women supporting women group

Gender silence

Cultural silence

Children silence

WWIT for women in tech to speak up more this year?

Whether it’s speaking up in the meeting room or writing a viral blog post. Do it afraid. Do it anyway.

You’re hired to speak up, and if you don’t do it, you’re being selfish. Hurts business, hurts other women, hurts men too

The challenge of getting women to speak at events

Why fewer women attend conferences

Need to sell you going to your manager

Women have tended not to speak up, especially to men or when men are the room

Mentioned in this episode

In my nervousness for this speech and in my moments of doubt, I told myself firmly: if not me, who? If not now, when?”

She extends her invitation to both men and women.

“Men, I would like to give this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue, too. Because to date, I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society. I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness, unable to ask for help for fear it would make them less of a man. In fact, in the UK, suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20 to 49, eclipsing road accidents, cancer and heart disease. I’ve seen men fragile and insecure by what constitutes male success. Men don’t have the benefits of equality, either.

We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes, but I can see that they are. When they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence. If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted, women won’t feel compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled.

Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong. It is the time that we all see gender as a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals. We should stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by who we are.'

Interview transcript

Michael: Welcome back to the show. I'm here with Sophie 00:03 [Eng] who published a blog post that went viral talking about women in tech. Her post was all about 00:12 [inaudible] role. It was a manifesto for women and minorities in startups, tech and business communities.

So, we're going to be talking about how men and women are different and the same in tech. And how traditional female characteristics actually can help in programming. And that applies to both men and women who have those characteristics.

And how she came to overcome her fear about publishing her first article that went viral. And how writing articles and speaking at events can help your career. So, we'll talk about a number of other things too. So, welcome Sophia.

Sophia: Thank you so much Michael, very excited to be here, really appreciate and really honor the opportunity to share more of my story and my experiences on being a woman, a minority in tech.

Michael: Yeah so, you actually have been researching this for a while. You're basically a growth hacker or you help people improve their conversion rates and marketing on their websites and startups particularly with women. And also, you’re involved in the Google ‘I am remarkable’ movement and several other initiatives. And we'll talk more about those later.

But you've been researching how men and women are different online or maybe they’re just the same and you can't tell. What's the scoop?

Sophie: So you know, I have been sitting on some of this research for a couple of weeks now. And looking at the differences not just biologically but even how women and men make different purchasing decisions, right. And how important it is for businesses to understand how to speak directly to women and men as well and how to create products around that.

Bio

Sophia Eng is a tactical and intuitive growth advisor and consultant to women in startups and small businesses. She also holds the position of Senior Manager, Online Marketing at InVision App. Views are her own.

Sophia has a passion for closing the minority and gender gap in business leadership and ownership. Recently, she founded a community group called Women in Growth, open to all women in startup, tech, and business communities for support.